Our Time in the Desert

 

Adversity can play a key role in honing our ability to hear what is beyond the usual scope of our ordinary consciousness. Facing stressful challenges outside the norm of our usual experience can heighten our awareness of events that otherwise would go unnoticed.

“Samuel Johnson put it “Depend upon it sir, when a man knows he is about to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” It is precisely for such clarity and insight that people seek out desert experiences such as solitary retreats, in which we step away from many of the usual supports of life, family, friends, familiar surroundings and routine, in order to be open to God’s call.

Unlike John-the-Baptist in Luke 3:1-6 , we don’t always get a chance to choose our desert times and places. They sometimes are provided for us in the form of illness, change in employment, failures in relationships, death of a loved one and even, natural disasters. These deserts all hold new possibilities for hearing the word of God at ever deepening levels.

In past month much of our focus has been centered on the devastating forest fires in California. To date 19,000 homes were destroyed and approximately 100 people have been reported dead. And two days ago we woke to the news of the massive earthquake that hit Alaska, causing extensive damage and loss of life. In recent weeks our Scripture Study discussions and Men’s Group have referred to having had our “spiritual nerves” more sensitized and “closer to the top of our skin.”

We, God knows, didn’t choose these cosmic events. Richard Rohr tells us that there may not be an external Designer and a micro-managing God working from the outside, but neither is the world devoid of His divinity. God’s divinity is so intimately present in the world, in us and through us, that the world can be regarded as an incarnate expression of the Trinity, especially in times of tribulation. The selfless dedication of emergency responders and ordinary people to provide shelter and comfort reminds us that God is intimately involved in our lives all the time. (adapted from Richard Rohr, A Spring Within Us “Reframing Our Cosmology”)